HIWCF is pleased to support Mental Health Awareness

Government, major employers and national charities have endorsed the importance of attention and energy sharply focused on evidence-based programmes offering advice and help on youth mental health problems including depression, anxiety and stress. We believe there is a need to link complementary approaches to the promotion and protection of youth mental health through prevention and treatment.

In January 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May spoke about how the government is planning to transform mental health support in this country, she said:

“For too long mental illness has been something of a hidden injustice in our country, shrouded in a completely unacceptable stigma and dangerously disregarded as a secondary issue to physical health. Yet left unaddressed, it destroys lives, it separates people from each other and deepens the divisions within our society. Changing this goes right to the heart of the kind of country we are, the values we share, the attitudes we hold and a determination to come together and support each other”.

“I want us to employ the power of government as a force for good to transform the way we deal with mental health problems right across society, and the first steps to transform the way we deal with mental illness in this country in our classrooms, at work and in our communities. This starts with ensuring that children and young people get the help and support they need and deserve – because we know that mental illness too often starts in childhood and that when left untreated, can blight lives, and become entrenched”.

“New support for schools with every secondary school in the country to be offered mental health first aid training and new trials to look at how to strengthen the links between schools and local NHS mental health staff. There will also be a major thematic review of children and adolescent mental health services across the country, led by the Care Quality Commission, to identify what is working and what it not and a new Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health to set out plans to transform services in schools, universities and for families”.

HIWCF are launching a new fund to address Youth Mental health issues across Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Southampton and Portsmouth which has already gained interest from a number of neighbouring Community Foundations, UKCF and the Big Lottery.